Systems and methods for protecting private information in a mobile environment

Abstract

Techniques for protecting non-public information in a mobile environment are provided. A request for non-public information about users in a mobile environment is received. Privacy policies, non-public and optional public information about the users affected by the request are determined. An optional privacy impact indicator is determined based on how satisfying the request increases the current public information about the users. Crowds of users having similar attribute name / values are optionally determined. User and optional requestor privacy policies which associate threshold release criteria such minimum crowd size, minimum consideration with the non-public information are determined. A privacy agreement is reached for the disclosure of the requested non-public information based on the compatibility of the requester and user privacy policies. Privacy protecting transformations are optionally determined and applied to create crowds or groups associated with the requested attribute.

Description

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE[0001]This application is related to: entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROTECTING PRIVACY” by Terresa Lunt et al., filed Dec. 2, 2004 as U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 003,688; herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of Invention[0003]This invention relates to protecting non-public information.[0004]2. Description of Related Art[0005]Conventional systems for protecting information privacy determine quasi-identifiers in data sets useful in re-identifying individual subjects. These conventional systems attempt to generalize, hide or withhold quasi-identifiers in the data sets to protect the privacy of individuals. For example, a subject's salary information can be hidden within aggregate salary information for a group.[0006]Other conventional systems for protecting privacy attempt to generalize the information to prevent re-association with specific subjects. For example, some of these systems replace s...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, in a typical data-mining environment, the underlying data sets are not necessarily available for access.

Moreover, these conventional systems do not work well in mobile environments.

This is often unacceptable in a mobile environment.

However, information about mobile users is not always centralized and / or if centralized is not usually available from the network operator.

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